The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul

The basis of knowledge of the Gita, the Veda, Sankhya, Yoga.

Schmidt Number: S-2672

On-line since: 9th January, 2001

LECTURE II

The basis of knowledge of the Gita, the Veda, Sankhya, Yoga.29 December, 1912

THE Bhagavad Gita, the sublime Song of the Indians, is, as I mentioned
yesterday, said by qualified persons to be the most important
philosophic poem of humanity, and he who goes deeply into the sublime
Gita will consider this expression fully justified. We shall take the
opportunity given by these lectures to point out the high artistic
merit of the Gita, but, above all, we must realise the importance of
this poem by considering what underlies it, the mighty thoughts and
wonderful knowledge of the world from which it grew, and for the
glorification and spreading, of which it was created. This glance into
the fundamental knowledge contained in the Gita is especially
important, because it is certain that all the essentials of this poem,
especially all relating to thought and knowledge are communicated to
us from a pre-Buddhistic stage of knowledge, so that we may say: The
spiritual horizon which surrounded the great Buddha, out of which he
grew, is characterised in the contents of the Gita. When we allow
these to influence us, we gaze into a spiritual condition of old
Indian civilisation in the pre-Buddhist age. We have already
emphasised that the thought contained in the Gita is a combined
out-pouring of three spiritual streams, not only fused into one
another, but moving and living within one another, so that they meet
us in the Gita as one whole. What we there meet with as a united
whole, as a spiritual out-pouring of primeval Indian thought and
perception, is a grand and beautiful aspect of knowledge, an
immeasurable sum of spiritual knowledge; an amount of spiritual
knowledge so vast that the modern man who has not yet studied
Spiritual Science cannot help feeling doubts as to such an amount of
knowledge and depth of science, having no possible standard with which
to compare it. The ordinary modern methods do not assist one to
penetrate the depths of know ledge communicated therein; at the most,
one can but look upon that here spoken of as a beautiful dream which
mankind once dreamt. From a merely modern standpoint one may perhaps
admire this dream, but would not acknowledge it as having any
scientific value. But those who have already studied Spiritual Science
will stand amazed at the depths of the Gita and must admit that in
primeval ages the human mind penetrated into knowledge which we can
only re-acquire gradually by means of the spiritual organs which we
must develop in the course of time. Their admiration is aroused for
the primeval insight that existed in those past ages. We can admire it
because we ourselves are able to re-discover it in the universe and
thereby confirm the truth of it. When we rediscover it and recognise
its truth, we then confess how wonderful it really is that in those
primeval ages men were able to raise themselves to such spiritual
heights! We know, to be sure, that in those old days mankind was
specially favoured, in that the remains of the old clairvoyance was
still alive in human souls, and that not only through a spiritual
meditation attained by using special exercises were men led into the
spiritual worlds, but also that the science of those days could
itself, in a certain sense, be penetrated by the knowledge and ideas
which the remains of the old clairvoyance brought. We must confess
that today we recognise, for quite other reasons, the correctness of
what is there communicated to us, but we must understand that in those
old times delicate distinctions as regards the being of man were
arrived at by other means; ingenious conceptions were drawn from that
which man was able to know: conceptions clearly outlined, which could
be applied to the spiritual as also to external physical reality. So
that in many respects, if we simply alter the expressions we use today
to suit our different standpoint, we find it possible to understand
the former standpoint also.

We have tried, in bringing forward our spiritual knowledge, to present
things as they appear to the present day clairvoyant perception; so
that our sort of Spiritual Science represents that which the
spiritually-minded man can attain today with the means at his command.
In the early days of the Theosophical Movement less was done by means
of what was drawn straight from occult science than by such methods as
were based on the designations and shadowy conceptions used in the
East, especially those which, by means of old traditions, have been
carried over from the Gita-time in the East into our present day.
Hence the older form of theosophical development (to which we have now
added our present method of occult investigation) worked more through
the old traditionally-received conceptions — especially those of
the Sankhya philosophy. But just as this Sankhya philosophy itself was
gradually changed in the East, through the alteration in oriental
thought, so, at the beginning of the Theosophical Movement the being
of man and other secrets were spoken of and these things were
specialty described by means of expressions used by Sankaracharya, the
great reformer of the Vedantic and other Indian knowledge in the
eighth century of the Christian reckoning. We need not devote much
attention to the expressions used at the beginning of the Theosophical
Movement, but in order to get to the foundations of the knowledge and
wisdom of the Gita, we shall devote ourselves today to the old
primeval Indian wisdom. What we meet with first, what, so to speak, is
drawn from that old wisdom itself, is especially to be found in the
Sankhya philosophy.

We shall best obtain an understanding of how Sankhya philosophy looked
upon the being and nature of man if, in the first place, we keep
clearly before us the fact that there is a spiritual germ in all
humanity; we have, always expressed this fact by saying that in the
human Soul there are slumbering forces which, in the course of human
evolution, will emerge more and more. The highest to which we can at
present aspire and to which the human soul can attain, will be what we
call Spirit-Man. Even when man, as a being, has risen to the stage of
Spirit-Man, he will still have to distinguish between the soul which
dwells within him and that which is Spirit-Man itself; just as in
everyday life today we have to distinguish between that which is our
innermost soul and the sheaths which enclose it; the Astral Body, the
Etheric or Life-Body, and the Physical Body. Just as we look upon
these bodies as sheaths and distinguish them from the soul itself,
which for the present cycle of humanity is divided into three parts:
sentient soul, intellectual reasoning soul, and consciousness soul
— just as we thus distinguish between the soul-nature and its
system of sheaths — so in future stages we shall have to reckon
with the actual soul, which will then have its threefold division
fitted for those future stages and corresponding to our sentient soul,
intellectual soul, and consciousness soul, and the sheath-nature,
which will then have reached that stage of man which, in our
terminology, we call Spirit-Man. That, however, which will some day
become the human sheath, and which will, so to say, enclose the
spiritual soul-part of man, the Spirit-Man, will, to be sure, only be
of significance to man in the future, but that to which a being will
eventually evolve is always there, in the great universe. The
substance of Spirit-Man in which we shall some day be ensheathed, has
always been in the great universe and is there at the present time. We
may say: Other beings have today already sheaths which will some day
form our Spirit-Man; thus the substance of which the human Spirit-Man
will some day consist exists in the universe. This, which our teaching
allows us to state, was already known to the old Sankhya doctrine; and
what thus existed in the universe, not yet individualised or
differentiated, but flowing like spiritual water, undifferentiated,
filling space and time, still exists, and will continue to exist,
this, from which all other forms come forth, was known by the Sankhya
philosophy as the highest form of substance; that form of substance
which has been accepted by Sankhya philosophy as continuing from age
to age. And as we speak about the beginning of the evolution of our
earth (recollect the course of lectures I once gave in Munich on the
foundation of the Story of Creation), as we speak of how at the
beginning of our earth-evolution, all to which the earth has now
evolved was present in spirit as substantial spiritual being; so did
the Sankhya philosophy speak of original substance, of a primordial
flood, from which all forms, both physical and super-physical, have
developed. To the man of today this highest form has not come into
consideration, but the day will come, as we have shown when it will
have to be considered.

In the next form which will evolve out of this primeval flowing
substance, we have to recognise that which, counting from above, we
know as the second principle of man, which we call Life-Spirit: or, if
we like to use an Eastern expression, we may call Budhi. Our teaching
also tells us that man will only develop Budhi in normal life at a
future stage; but as a super-human spiritual form-principle it has
always existed among other entities, and, inasmuch as it always
existed, it was the first form differentiated from the primeval
flowing substance. According to the Sankhya philosophy the
super-psychic existence of Budhi arose from the first form of
substantial existence. Now if we consider the further evolution of the
substantial principle, we meet as a third form that which the Sankhya
philosophy calls Ahamkara. Whereas Budhi stands, so to speak, on the
borders of the principle of differentiation and merely hints at a
certain individualisation, the form of Ahamkara appears as completely
differentiated already so that when we speak of Ahamkara we must
imagine Budhi as organised into independent, real, substantial forms,
which then exist in the world individually. If we want to obtain a
picture of this evolution we must imagine an equally distributed mass
of water as the substantial primeval principle; then imagine it
welling up so that separate forms emerge, but not breaking away as
fully formed drops, forms which rise like little mounts of water from
the common substance and yet have their basis in the common primeval
flow. We should then have Budhi; and inasmuch as these water-mounts
detach themselves into drops, into independent globes, in these we
have the form of Ahamkara. Through a certain thickening of this
Ahamkara, of the already individualised form of each separate
soul-form, there then arises what we describe as Manas.

Here we must admit that perhaps a little unevenness arises as regards
our naming of things. In considering human evolution from the point of
view of our teaching, we place (counting from above) Spirit-Self after
Life-spirit or Budhi. This manner of designation is absolutely correct
for the present cycle of humanity, and in the course of these lectures
we shall see why. We do not insert Ahamkara between Budhi and Manas,
but for the purpose of our concept we unite it with Manas and call
both together Spirit-Self. In those old days it was quite justifiable
to consider them as separate, for a reason which I shall only indicate
today and later elaborate. It was justifiable because one could not
then use that important characteristic that we must give if we are to
make ourselves understood at the present day; the characteristic which
comes on the one side from the influence of Lucifer, and on the other
from that of Ahriman. This characteristic is absolutely lacking in the
Sankhya philosophy, and for a construction that had no occasion to
look towards these two principles because it could as yet find no
trace of their force, it was quite justifiable to slip in this
differentiated form between Budhi and Manas. When we therefore speak
of Manas in the sense of the Sankhya philosophy, we are not speaking
of quite the same thing as when we speak of it in the sense of
Sankaracharya. In the latter we can perfectly identify Manas with
Spirit-Self; but we cannot actually do so in the sense of Sankhya
philosophy; though we can characterise quite fully what Manas is.

In this case we first start with man in the world of sense, living in
the physical world. At first he lives his physical existence in such a
way that he realises his surroundings by means of his senses; and
through his organs of touch, by means of his hands and feet, by
handling, walking, speaking, he reacts on the physical world around
him. Man realises the surrounding world by means of his senses and he
works upon it, in a physical sense, by means of his organs of touch.
Sankhya philosophy is quite in accordance with this. But how does a
man realise the surrounding world by means of his senses? Well, with
our eyes we see the light and colour, light and dark, we see, too, the
shapes of things; with our ears we perceive sounds; with our organ of
smell we sense perfumes; with our organs of taste we receive
taste-impressions. Each separate sense is a means of realising a
particular part of the external world. The organs of sight perceive
colours and light; those of hearing, sounds, and so on. We are, as it
were, connected with the surrounding world through these doors of our
being which we call senses; through them we open ourselves to the
surrounding world; but through each separate sense we approach a
particular province of that world. Now even our ordinary language
shows us that within us we carry something like a principle which
holds together these different provinces to which our senses incline.
For instance, we talk of warm and cold colours, although we know that
this is only a manner of speaking, and that in reality we realise cold
and warmth through the organs of touch, and colours, light and
darkness through the organs of sight. Thus we speak of warm and cold
colours, that is to say, from a certain inner relationship which we
feel, we apply what is perceived by the one sense to the others. We
express ourselves thus, because in our inner being there is a certain
intermingling between what we perceive through our sight and that
which we realise as a sense of warmth — more delicately sensitive
people, on hearing certain sounds can inwardly realise certain ideas
of colour; they can speak of certain notes as representing red, and
others blue. Within us, therefore, dwells something which holds the
separate senses together, and makes out of the separate sense-fields
something complete for the soul. If we are sensitive, we can go yet
further. There are people, for instance, who feel, on entering one
town, that it gives an impression of yellow another town gives an
impression of red, another of white, another of blue. A great deal of
that which impresses us inwardly is transformed into a perception of
colour; we unite the separate sense-impressions inwardly into one
collective sense which does not belong to the department of any one
sense alone, but lives in our inner being and fills us with a sense of
undividedness whenever we make use of any one sense-impression. We may
call this the inner sense; and we may all the more call it so,
inasmuch as all that we otherwise experience inwardly as sorrow and
joy, emotions and affections, we unite again with that which this
inner sense gives us. Certain emotions we may describe as dark and
cold, others as warm and full of light. We can therefore say that our
inner being reacts again upon what forms the inner sense. Therefore,
as opposed to the several senses which we direct to the different
provinces of the external world, we can speak of one which fills the
soul; one, of which we know that it is not connected with any single
sense-organ, but takes our whole being as its instrument. To describe
this inner sense as Manas would be quite in harmony with Sankhya
philosophy, for, according to this, that which forms this inner sense
into substance develops, as a later production of form, out of
Ahamkara. We may, therefore, say: First came the primeval flood, then
Budhi, then Ahamkara, then Manas, which latter we find within us as
our inner sense. If we wish to observe this inner sense, we can do so
by taking the separate senses and observing how we can form a concept
by the way in which the perceptions of the separate senses are united
in the inner sense.

This is the way we take today, because our knowledge is pursuing an
inverted path. If we look at the development of our knowledge, we must
admit that it starts from the differentiation of the separate senses
and then tries to climb up to the conjoint sense. Evolution goes the
other way round. During the evolution of the world, Manas first
evolved out of Ahamkara and then the primeval substances
differentiated themselves, the forces which form the separate senses
that we carry within us. (By which we do not mean those material
sense-organs which belong to the physical body, but forces which
underlie these as formative forces and which are quite super-sensible.)
Therefore when we descend the stages of the ladder of the evolution of
forms, we come down from Ahamkara to Manas, according to the Sankhya
philosophy; then Manas differentiates into separate forms and yields
those super-sensible forces which build up our separate senses. We
have, therefore, the possibility-because when we consider the separate
senses the soul takes a part in them — of bringing what we get
out of Sankhya philosophy into line with that which our teaching
contains. For Sankhya philosophy tells us the following: In that Manas
has differentiated itself into the separate world-forces of the
senses, the soul submerges itself — we know that the soul itself
is distinct from these forms — the soul immerses itself into
these different forms; but inasmuch as it does so, and also submerges
itself into Manas, so it works through these sense-forces, is
interwoven with and entwined in them. In so doing the soul reaches the
point of placing itself as regards its spiritual soul-being in
connection with an external world, in order to feel pleasure and
sympathy therein. Out of Manas the force-substance has differentiated
which constitutes the eye, for instance. At an earlier stage, when the
physical body of man did not exist in its present form (thus Sankhya
philosophy relates) the soul was immersed in the mere forces that
Constitute the eye. We know that the human eye of today was laid down
germinally in the old Saturn time, yet only after the withdrawal of
the warmth organ, which at the present day is to be found in a stunted
form in the pineal gland, did it, develop — that is to say,
comparatively late. But the forces out of which it evolved were
already there in super-sensible form, and the soul lived within them.
Thus Sankhya philosophy relates as follows: in so far as the soul
lives in this differentiation principle, it is attached to the
existence of the external world and develops a thirst for this
existence. Through the forces of the senses the soul is connected with
the external world; hence the inclination towards existence, and the
longing for it. The soul sends, in a way, feelers out through the
sense-organs and through their forces attaches itself to the external
world. This combination of forces, a real sum of forces, we unite in
the astral body of man. The Sankhya philosopher speaks of the combined
working of the separate sense-forces, at this stage differentiated
from Manas. Again, out of these sense-forces arise the finer elements,
of which we realise that the human etheric body is composed. This is a
comparatively late production. We find this etheric body in man.

We must therefore picture to ourselves that, in the course of
evolution the following have formed: Primeval Flood, Budhi, Ahamkara,
Manas, the substances of the senses, and the finer elements. In the
outer world, in the kingdom of nature, these fine elements are also to
be found, for instance, in the plants, as etheric or life-body. We
have then to imagine, according to Sankhya philosophy, that at the
basis of this whole evolution there is to be found, in every plant a
development starting from above and going downwards, which comes from
the primeval flood. But in the case of the plant all takes place in
the super-sensible, and only becomes real in the physical world when it
densifies into the finer elements which live in the etheric or
life-body of the plant; while with man it is the case that the higher
forms and principles already reveal themselves as Manas in his present
development; the separate organs of sense reveal themselves
externally. In the plant there is only to be found that late
production which arises when the sense substance densifies into finer
elements, into the etheric elements; and from the further densifying
of the etheric elements arise the coarser elements from which spring
all the physical things we meet in the physical world. Therefore
reckoning upwards we can, according to Sankhya philosophy, count the
human principles, as coarse physical body, finer etheric body, astral
body (this expression is not used in Sankhya philosophy. Instead of
that the formative-force body that builds the senses is used) then
Manas in an inner sense, then in Ahamkara the principle which
underlies human individuality, which brings it about that man not only
has an inner sense through which he can perceive the several regions
of the senses, but also feels himself to be a separate being, an
individuality. Ahamkara brings this about. Then come the higher
principles which in man only exist germinally, — Budhi and that
which the rest of Eastern philosophy is accustomed to call Atma, which
is cosmically thought of by the Sankhya philosophy as the spiritual
primeval flood which we have described. Thus in the Sankhya philosophy
we have a complete presentation of the constitution of man, of how
man, as soul, envelopes himself in the past, present and future, in
the substantial external nature-principle, whereby not only the
external visible is to be understood, but all stages of nature, up to
the most invisible. Thus does the Sankhya philosophy divide the forms
we have now mentioned. In the forms or in Prakriti, which includes all
forms from the coarse physical body up to the primeval flood, dwells
Purusha, the spirit-soul, which in single souls is represented as
monadic; so the separate soul-monads should, so to say, be thought of
as without beginning and without end, just as this material principle
of Prakriti — which is not material in our materialistic sense
— is also represented as being without beginning and without end.
This philosophy thus presents a plurality of souls dipping down into
the Prakriti principle and evolving from the highest undifferentiated
form of the primeval flood in which they enclose themselves, down to
the embodiment in a coarse physical body in order, then, to turn back
and, after overcoming the physical body, to evolve upwards again; to
return back again into the primeval flood, and to free themselves even
from this, in order to be able as free souls to withdraw into pure
Purusha.

If we allow this sort of knowledge to influence us, we see how,
underlying it, so to speak, was that old wisdom which we now endeavour
to re-acquire by the means which our soul-meditations can give us; and
in accordance with the Sankhya philosophy we see that there is insight
even into the manner in which each of these form principles may be
united with the soul. The soul may, for instance, be so connected with
Budhi that it realises its full independence, as it were, while within
Budhi; so that not Budhi, but the soul-nature, makes itself felt in a
predominating degree. The opposite may also be the case. The soul may
enwrap its independence in a sort of sleep, envelop it in lassitude
and idleness, so that the sheath-nature is most prominent. This may
also be the case with the external physical nature consisting of
coarse substance. Here we only need to observe human beings. There may
be a man who preferably cultivates his soul and spirit, so that every
movement, every gesture, every look which can be communicated by means
of the coarse physical body, are of secondary importance compared to
the fact that in him the spiritual and soul-nature are expressed.
Before us stands a man — we see him certainly in the coarse,
physical body that stands before us — but in his movements,
gestures and looks there is something that makes us say: This man is
wholly spiritual and psychic, he only uses the physical principle to
give expression to this. The physical principle does not overpower
him; on the contrary, he is everywhere the conqueror of the physical
principle. This condition, in which the soul is master of the external
sheath-principle, is the Sattva condition. This Sattva condition may
exist in connection with the relation of the soul to Budhi and Manas
as well as in that of the soul to the body which consists of fine and
coarse elements. For if one says: The soul lives in Sattva, that means
nothing but a certain relation of the soul to its envelope, of the
spiritual principle of that soul to the nature-principle; the relation
of the Purusha-principle to the Prakriti-principle. We may also see a
man whose coarse physical body quite dominates him — we are not
now speaking of moral characteristics, but of pure characteristics,
such as are understood in Sankhya philosophy, and which do not, seen
with spiritual eyes, bear any moral characteristic whatever. We may
meet a man who, so to speak, walks about under the weight of his
physical body, who puts on much flesh, whose whole appearance is
influenced by the weight of his physical body, to whom it is difficult
to express the soul in his external physical body. When we move the
muscles of our face in harmony with the speaking of the soul, the
Sattva principle is master; when quantities of fat imprint a special
physiognomy to our faces, the soul-principle is then overpowered by
the external sheath principle, and the soul bears the relation of
Tamas to the nature principle. When there is a balance between these
two states, when neither the soul has the mastery as in the Sattva
state, nor the external sheath-nature as in the Tamas condition, when
both are equally balanced, that may be called the Rajas condition.
These are the three Gunas, which are quite specially important. We
must, therefore, distinguish the characteristic of the separate forms
of Prakriti. From the highest principle of the undifferentiated
primeval substance down to the coarse physical body is the one
characteristic, the characteristic of the mere sheath principle. From
this we must distinguish what belongs to the Sankhya philosophy in
order to characterise the relation of the soul nature to the sheaths,
regardless of what the form of the sheath may be. This characteristic
is given through the three states Sattva, Rajas, Tamas.

We will now bring before our minds the penetrating depths of such a
knowledge and realise how deep an insight into the secrets of
existence a science must have had, which was able to give such a
comprehensive description of all living beings. Then that admiration
fills our souls of which we spoke before, and we tell ourselves that
it is one of the most wonderful things in the history of the
development of man, that that which appears again today in Spiritual
Science out of dark spiritual depths should have already existed in
those ancient times, when it was obtained by different methods. All
this knowledge once existed, my dear friends. We perceive it when we
direct the spiritual gaze to certain primeval times. Then let us look
at the succeeding ages. We gaze upon what is generally brought to our
notice in the spiritual life of the different periods, in the old
Greek age, in the age following that, the Roman age, and in the
Christian Middle Ages. We turn our gaze from what the older cultures
give down to modern times, till we come to the age when Spiritual
Science once again brings us something which grew in the primeval
knowledge of mankind. When we survey all this we may say: In our time
we often lack even the smallest glimmering of that primeval knowledge.
Ever more and more a mere knowledge of external material existence is
taking the place of the knowledge of that grand sphere of existence
and of the super-sensible, all-embracing old perception. It was indeed
the purpose of evolution for three thousand years, that in the place
of the old primeval perception the external knowledge of the material
physical plane should arise. It is interesting to see how upon the
material plane alone — I do not want to withhold this remark from
you — there still remains, left behind, as it were, in the age of
Greek philosophy, something like an echo of the old Sankhya knowledge.
We can still find in
Aristotle
some echoes of real soul-nature; but
these in all their perfect clarity can no longer be properly connected
with the old Sankhya knowledge. We even find in Aristotle the
distribution of the human being within the coarse physical body; he
does not exactly mention this, but shapes a distribution in which he
believes he gives the soul-part, whereas the Sankhya philosophy knows
that this is only the sheaths; we find there the vegetative soul
which, in the sense of the Sankhya philosophy would be attributed to
the finer elemental body. Aristotle believes himself to be describing
something pertaining to the soul; but he only describes connections
between the soul and the body, the Gunas, and in what he describes he
gives but the form of the sheaths. Then Aristotle ascribes to that
which reaches out into the sphere of the senses, and which we call the
astral body, something which he distinguishes as being a
soul-principle. Thus he no longer clearly distinguishes the soul-part
from the bodily, because, to him, the former has already been swamped
by the bodily shape; he distinguishes the Asthetikon, and in the soul
he further distinguishes the Orektikon, Kinetikon, and the Dianetikon.
These, according to Aristotle, are grades of the soul, but we no
longer find in him a clear discrimination between the soul-principle
and its sheaths; he believes he is giving a classification of the
soul, whereas the Sankhya philosophy grasps the soul in its own being
as a monad and all the differentiations of the soul are, as it were,
at once placed in the sheath-principle, in the Prakriti principle.

Therefore, even Aristotle himself in speaking of the soul part no
longer speaks of that primeval knowledge which we discover in the
Sankhya philosophy. But in one domain, the domain of the material,
Aristotle still has something to relate which is like a surviving echo
of the principle of the three conditions; that is, when he speaks of
light and darkness in colours. He says: There are some colours which
have more darkness in them and others which have more light, and there
are colours between these. According to Aristotle, in the colours
ranging between blue and violet the darkness predominates over light.
Thus a colour is blue or violet because darkness predominates over
light, and it is green or greenish-yellow when light and darkness
counterbalance each other, while a colour is reddish or orange when
the light-principle overrules the dark. In Sankhya philosophy we have
this principle of the three conditions for the whole compass of the
world-phenomena; there we have Sattva when the spiritual predominates
over the natural. Aristotle still has this same characteristic, in
speaking of colours. He does not use these words: but one may say: Red
and reddish-yellow represent the Sattva condition of light. This
manner of expression is no longer to be found in Aristotle, but the
principle of the old Sankhya philosophy is still to be found in him;
green represents the Rajas condition as regards light and darkness,
and blue and violet, in which darkness predominates, represent the
Tamas-condition of light and darkness. Even though Aristotle does not
make use of these expressions, the train of thought can still be
traced which arises from that spiritual grasp of the world conditions
which we meet with in the Sankhya philosophy. In the colour teaching
of Aristotle we have therefore an echo of the old Sankhya philosophy.
But even this echo was lost, and we first experience a glimmering of
these three conditions, Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, in the external domain
of the world of colour, in the hard struggle carried on by
Goethe.
For after the old Aristotelian division of the colour-world into a Sattva,
Rajas and Tamas condition, had been entirely buried, so to say, it
then reappears in Goethe. At the present time it is still abused by
modern physicists, but the colour-system of Goethe is produced from
principles of spiritual wisdom. The physicist of today is right from
his own standpoint when he does not agree with Goethe over this, but
he only proves that in this respect physics has been abandoned by all
the good Gods! That is the case with the physics of today, which is
why it grumbles at Goethe's colour teaching.

If one wished today really to combine science with occult principles,
one would, however, be obliged to support the colour theory of Goethe.
For in that we find again, in the very centre of our scientific
culture, the principle which once upon a time reigned as the spiritual
principle of the Sankhya philosophy. You can understand, my dear
friends, why many years ago I set myself the task of bringing Goethe's
colour theory again into notice as a physical science, resting,
however, upon occult principles; for one may quite relevantly say that
Goethe so divides the colour phenomena that he represents them
according to the three states of Sattva, Rajas, Tamas. So gradually,
there emerges into the new spiritual history discovered by the modern
methods, that which mankind attained to once upon a time by quite
other means. The Sankhya philosophy is pre-Buddhistic, as the legend
of Buddha brings very clearly before our eyes; for it relates, and
rightly, the Indian doctrine that Kapila was the founder of the
Sankhya philosophy. Buddha was born in the dwelling place of Kapila,
in Kapila Vastu, whereby it is indicated that Buddha grew up under the
Sankhya teaching. Even by his very birth he was placed where once
worked the one who first gathered together this great Sankhya
philosophy. We have to picture to ourselves this Sankhya doctrine in
its relation to the other spiritual currents of which we have spoken,
not as many Orientalists of the present day represent it, nor as does
the Jesuit, Joseph Dahlmann; but that in different parts of ancient
India there lived men who were differentiated, for at the time when
these three spiritual currents were developing, the very first
primeval state of human evolution was no longer there. For instance,
in the North Eastern part of India human nature was such that it
inclined to the conceptions given in the Sankhya philosophy; more
towards the West, human nature was of that kind that it inclined to
conceive of the world according to the Veda doctrine. The different
spiritual “nuances” come, therefore, from, the differently
gifted human nature in the different parts of India; and only because
of the Vedantists later on having worked on further and made many
things familiar, do we find in the Vedas at the present time much of
Sankhya philosophy bound up with them. Yoga, the third spiritual
current, arose as we have often pointed out, because the old
clairvoyance had gradually diminished, and one had to seek new ways to
the spiritual worlds. Yoga is distinguished from Sankhya in that the
latter is a real science, a science of external forms, which really
only grasps these forms and the different relations of the human soul
to these forms. Yoga shows how souls can develop so as to reach the
spiritual worlds.

And if we ask ourselves what an Indian soul was to do, who, at a
comparatively later time wanted to develop, though not in a one-sided
way, who did not wish to advance by the mere consideration of external
form, but wanted to uplift the soul-nature itself, so as to evolve
again that which was originally given as by a gracious illumination in
the Vedas — to this we find the answer in what Krishna gave to
his pupil Arjuna in the sublime Gita. Such a soul would have to go
through a development which might be expressed in the following words:
“Yes, it is true thou seest the world in its external forms, and
if thou art permeated with the knowledge of Sankhya thou wilt see how
these forms have developed out of the primeval flow: but thou canst
also see how one form changes into another. Thy vision can follow the
arising and the disappearing of forms, thine eyes see their birth and
their death. But if thou considerest thoroughly how one form replaces
another, how form after form arises and vanishes, thou art led to
consider what is expressed in all these forms; a thorough inquiry will
lead thee to the spiritual principle which expresses itself in all
these forms; sometimes more according to the Sattva condition, at
other times more after the forms of the other Gunas, but which again
liberates itself from these forms. A thorough consideration such as
this will direct thee to something permanent, which, as compared to
form, is everlasting. The material principle is indeed also permanent,
it remains; but the forms which thou seest, arise and fade away again,
pass through birth and death; but the element of the soul and spirit
nature remains. Direct thy glance to that! But in order that thou
shouldst thyself experience this psychic-spiritual element within thee
and around thee and feel it one with thyself, thou must develop the
slumbering forces in thy soul, thou must yield thyself to Yoga, which
begins with devotional looking upwards to the psychic-spiritual
element of being, and which, by the use of certain exercises, leads to
the development of these slumbering forces, so that the pupil rises
from one stage to another by means of Yoga.” Devotional reverence
for the psychic-spiritual is the other way which leads the soul itself
forwards; it leads to that which lives as unity in the spiritual
element behind the changing forms which the Veda once upon a time
announced through grace and illumination, and which the soul will
again find through Yoga as that which is to be looked for behind all
the changing forms. “Therefore go thou,” thus might a great
teacher have said to his pupil, “go thou through the knowledge of
the Sankhya philosophy, of forms, of the Gunas, through the study of
the Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, through the forms from the highest down
to the coarsest substance, go through these, making use of thy reason,
and admit that there must be something permanent, something that is
uniting, and then wilt thou penetrate to the Eternal. Thou canst also
start in thy soul through devotion; then thou wilt push on through
Yoga from stage to stage, and wilt reach the spiritual which is at the
base of all forms. Thou canst approach the spiritual from two
different sides; by a thoughtful contemplation of the world, or by
Yoga; both will lead thee to that which the great teacher of the Vedas
describes as the Unitary Atma-Brahma, that lives as well in the outer
world as in the inmost part of the soul, that which as Unity is the
basis of the world. Thou wilt attain to that on the one hand by
dwelling on the Sankhya philosophy, and on the other by going through
Yoga in a devotional frame of mind.”

Thus we look back upon those old times, in which, so to speak,
clairvoyant force was still united with human nature through the
blood, as I have shown in my book, The Occult Significance of
Blood. But mankind gradually advanced in its evolution, from that
principle which was bound up in the blood to that which consisted of
the psychic-spiritual. In order that the connection with the
psychic-spiritual should not be lost, which was so easily attained in
the old times of the blood-relationship of family stock and peoples,
new methods had to be found, new ways of teaching, during the period
of transition from blood-relationship to that period in which it no
longer held sway. The sublime song of the Bhagavad Gita leads us to
this time of transition. It relates how the descendants of the royal
brothers of the lines of Kuru and Pandu fought together. On the one
side we look up to a time which was already past when the story of the
Gita begins, a time in which the Old-Indian perception still existed
and men still went on living in accordance with that. We can perceive,
so to say, the one line which arose out of the old times being carried
over into the new, in the blind King Dritarashtra of the house of
Kuru; and we see him in conversation with his chariot-driver. He
stands by the fighters of one side; on the other side are those who
are related to him by blood but who are fighting because they are in a
state of transition from the old times to the new. These are the sons
of Pandu; and the charioteer tells his King (who is characteristically
described as blind, because it is not the spiritual that shall descend
from this root but the physical), the charioteer relates to his blind
King what is happening over there among the sons of Pandu, to whom is
to pass all that is more of a psychic and spiritual nature for the
generations yet to come. He relates how Arjuna, the representative of
the fighters, is instructed by the great Krishna, the Teacher of
mankind; he relates how Krishna taught his pupil, Arjuna, about all
that of which we have just been speaking, of what man can attain if he
uses Sankhya and Yoga, if he develops thinking and devotion in order
to press on to that which the great teachers of mankind of former days
have described in the Vedas. And we are told in glorious language, as
philosophical as it is poetical, of the instructions given through
Krishna, through the Great Teacher of the humanity of the new ages
which have emerged from the blood-relationship. Thus we find something
else shining from those old times across to our own. In that
consideration which is the basis of the pamphlet, The Occult
Significance of Blood, and many similar ones, I have indicated how
the evolution of mankind after the time of blood-relationship took on
other differentiations, and how the striving of the soul has thus
become different too. In the sublime song of the Bhagavad Gita we are
led directly to this transition; we are so led that we see by the
instructions given to Arjuna by Krishna, how man, to whom no longer
belongs the old clairvoyance dependent upon the blood-relationship,
must press on to what is eternal. In this teaching we encounter that
which we have often spoken of as an important transition in the
evolution of mankind, and the Sublime Song becomes to us an
illustration of that which we arrived at by a separate study of the
subject.

What attracts us particularly to the Bhagavad Gita is the clear and
emphatic way in which the path of man is spoken of, the path man has
to tread from the temporary to the permanent. There at first Arjuna
stands before us, full of trouble in his soul; we can hear that in the
tale of the charioteer (for all that is related comes from the mouth
of the charioteer of the blind King). Arjuna stands before us with his
trouble-laden soul, he sees himself fighting against the Kurus, his
blood-relations, and he says now to himself: “Must I then fight
against those who are linked to me by blood, those who are the sons of
my father's brothers? There are many heroes among us who must turn
their weapons against their own relations, and on the opposite side
there are just as honourable heroes, who must direct their weapons
against us.” He was sore troubled in his soul “Can I win this
battle? Ought I to win, ought one brother to raise his sword against
another?” Then Krishna comes to him, the Great Teacher Krishna,
and says: “First of all, give thoughtful consideration to human
life and consider the case in which thou thyself now art. In the
bodies of those against whom thou art to fight and who belong to the
Kuru-line, that is to say, in temporal forms, there live soul-beings
who are eternal, they only express themselves in these forms. In those
who are thy fellow-combatants dwell eternal souls, who only express
themselves through the forms of the external world. You will have to
fight, for thus your laws ordain; it is ordained by the working laws
of the external evolution of mankind. You will have to fight, thus it
is ordained by the moment which indicates the passing from one period
to another. But shouldst thou mourn on that account, because one form
fights against another, One changing form struggles with another
changing form? Whichsoever of these forms are to lead the others into
death — what is death? and what is life? The changing of the
forms is death, and it is life. The souls that are to be victorious
are similar to those who are now about to go to their death. What is
this victory, what is this death, compared to that to which a
thoughtful consideration of Sankhya leads thee, compared to the
eternal souls, opposing one another yet remaining themselves
undisturbed by all battles?” In magnificent manner out of the
situation itself, we are shown that Arjuna must not allow himself to
be disturbed by soul-trouble in his innermost being, but must do his
duty which now calls him to battle; he must look beyond the transitory
which is entangled in the battle to the eternal which lives on,
whether as conqueror or as conquered. And so in a unique way is the
great note struck in the sublime song, in the Bhagavad Gita; the great
note concerning an important event in the evolution of man kind, the
note of the transitory and of the everlasting.

Not by abstract thought, but by allowing the perception of what is
contained in this to influence us, shall we find ourselves upon the
right path. For we are on the right path when we so look upon the
instructions of Krishna as to see that he is trying to raise the soul
of Arjuna from the stage at which it stands, in which it is entangled
in the net of the transitory. Krishna tries to raise it to a higher
stage, in which it will feel itself uplifted beyond all that is
transitory, even when that comes directly to the soul in such
distressing manner as in victory or defeat, as giving death or
suffering it. We can truly see the proof of that which some one once
said about this Eastern philosophy, as it presents itself to us in the
sublime poem of the Bhagavad Gita: “This Eastern philosophy is so
absolutely part of the religion of those old times that he who
belonged to it, however great and wise he might be, was not without
the deepest religious fervour, whilst the simplest man, who only lived
the religion of feeling, was not without a certain amount of
wisdom.” We feel this, when see we how the great teacher,
Krishna, not only influences the ideas of his pupil, but works
directly into his disposition, so that he appears to us as
contemplating the transitory and the troubles belonging to the
transitory; and in such a significant situation we see his soul rising
to a height from which it soars far beyond all that is transitory,
beyond all the troubles, pain and sorrows of the transitory.